I consider this film as one of the better works of Fritz Lang. Gripping from the beginning to the end. All the actors are perfect. A masterpiece of Film-Noir.
"The beauty of life is in small details, not in big events."
- Jim Jarmusch
dph-lebret is absolutely correct. this is an overlooked classic
shareThank you! Unfortunately this film is not available in DVD. Incredible!
"The beauty of life is in small details, not in big events."
- Jim Jarmusch
I think it became too much of a Soap Opera.
Nice to see such character development, but it thinned down the suspense.
At times, I almost forgot there was a serial killer at large.
A masterpiece of boredom.
shareI don't think it was boring. I felt quite the opposite - it resembled more of a thriller, unlike most noirs. And it reminded me "Psycho" at some points. As some of you may know, Hitchcock was influenced by Lang. But Lang is strange - in his own way, and thus - his work is not quite appealing to everyone.
The movie is really a film-noir masterpiece, and surely - underrated.
Hardly a masterpiece and there's not much about it that I'd call noirish.
shareI hope it will be available on DVD (Zone 2)!!!
shareI thought it had a kind of noir look but in terms of it's substance, yeah, you're right. A murder mystery and a kind of jolly one at that! Without Fritz Lang's work on it I'm guessing none of us would be here talking about it.
cinefreak
The best thing about this film was the small appearances of the great Vincent Price. Did anyone else find Dana Andrews cringeworthy in the drinking scenes , im not a great fan of his in any case. He reminds me of a stereotyped John Wayne figure - his characters always have a macho alpha male past yet he comes across as an exceptionally dull man.
shareAgreed, it was nice to hear Vincent's voice (and see him of course as well).
The film as a whole doesn't have that dominant noir feeling throughout it, as others have already pointed out. Therefore I wouldn't go as far as saying that it is a masterpiece of the genre, but irrespective of that - it is most certainly an underrated film.
Actually, it was an unintentionally humorous gag fest. So silly and so unlike Lang's earlier masterworks like "Scarlet Street" and "Woman in the Window". Where I come from its seen as an unremarkable soap opera. Poor Lang, he wanted to go home to Germany by this time and he soon did.
Sacred cows make delicious hamburgers.
I love this movie, but I wouldn't call it a film noir. It pulls a switcheroo, opening with the murder to hook the audience, then shifting to the figurative backstabbing of office politics. That it's not going to be noir should be apparent the first time you see Dana Andrews.. sitting in a chair getting makeup put on.
For once Dana Andrews gets to be a little humorous. The sneer with which he says "You're a mama's boy" in the TV broadcast, the drumming fingers and eyeroll while getting nagged by his fiancee in the restaurant, and at the end, the lecherously appreciative comments on her nightgown are the kind of thing Andrews didn't often get to do.
It seemed to me that Andrews' movements as a whole were a bit looser here than his usual square-jawed heroes. As an Andrews fan already, this moved the film up another notch.
The only disappointment to me was that for a guy supposed to be nailing the bosses' wife, Kreitzer came off as inert. This milquetoast is stealing a woman from Vincent Price?
I think some of the harsher comments about this movie come from people wanting it to be what it's not.
I think the term "film gris" was coined for Lang's last two American films (although, the term has been used by others to describe a gazillion other things, so take it with a grain of salt). The film is masquerading as a noir. The title, for instance. There's not much of the night or the city shown in this film, and the killer's last murder attempt, with deliberate irony, takes place during the day. And, budget constraints aside, this film is deliberately stripped down visually. There's none of that typical noir (and Langian) chiaroscuro. Like in Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, the film is washed in light, completely low contrast.
I think the final two RKO films are about as icy, abstract and theoretical as cinema gets. Its not just the summit of Lang's growing misanthropy -- the grays of the films complement the moral ambiguity, ie who exactly is the real criminal in these films, or is everyone guilty to begin with -- but also, I think, his complete disenchantment with cinema. Someone above said that Lang probably wanted to go home, and that might not be far from the truth. The Indian Tomb films and the final Mabuse may be featherweight cinema, but they're warm and endearing films where the love of the craft is evident. In these films, he pared everything down to the most basic formulas, almost daring the audience to hate the films along with him.
Basically, I think he took apart noir and left the pieces on the floor.
Still, While the City Sleeps and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt are fascinating films. I wouldn't go so far as Rivette, who claimed of the latter that "anyone who fails to be more moved by this film... knows nothing, not only of cinema but of man," but they are rich and peculiar pieces. I think the modern viewer can find a lot of value in them, both in their theory and in their profound leftist (and feminist?) sensibilities.
Fritz Lang fanboy alert! But even he can't polish this turd.
shareThe only disappointment to me was that for a guy supposed to be nailing the bosses' wife, Kreitzer came off as inert. This milquetoast is stealing a woman from Vincent Price?
Well, I think he was meant to seem more virile than playboy Price, but I agree the actor was flat. Anyway, Vincent Price was better looking and in the end turned out to be a better man, although he took his time getting there.
I wouldn't call this film a masterpiece or even film noir, but it's still a good film and I enjoyed it a lot :D Plenty to like about it, Ida Lupino, Vincent Price, Dana Andrews coming off as a bit slimey, office politics, a really annoying killer, and a general feeling of chracters not really caring much about anybody else. I WILL watch this film again.
shareWouldn´t say so - it´s dramatically kind of underwhelming and the co-existence of the two plot strands (murder mystery & newspaper contest) is ultimately uneasy and causes the film lose focus. It also gets periodically bogged down by lengthy scenes of fairly tired dialogue. Not a bad movie exactly, but certainly not as compelling or vivid as it should have been, either. 6-6,5/10.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
Too much of a comedy to be noir. In a comedy, the boys end up with the girls, which apparently happened to at least one of the two unmarried men. The villain was too much of a one-dimentional caricature (although Lang gets bonus points for foreshadowing "Psycho"). The office politics were ultimately comedic relief, as the three main leads constantly plotted with and against each other.
The scenes really weren't filmed as noir, but more straight-on lighting (such as in the apartments and on the stairways at the apartments; and at the newspaper). Dialog was rather flat for noir as well (contrast "Double Indemnity").
Ida Lupino was fabulous, and I would definitely find a place for Rhonda Fleming in my love nest.
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"...and that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana shaped."share
Ok.
shareMassive overstatement. It was just watchable.
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